The ecological, economic and social benefits of sorting biowaste at source are numerous.
In this article, I invite you to discover how biowaste recovery can help us considerably reduce our carbon footprint! 🌍
Contents
👉 Reducing dependence on fossil fuels
Recycling biowaste into compost and biogas helps reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, which are highly polluting.
1️⃣ A renewable energy, biogas has the same uses as natural gas. But it emits 5 to 10 times less CO2 than natural gas!
2️⃣ Compost and digestate represent a natural alternative to synthetic fertilizers. Their production requires fossil fuels. They generate greenhouse gases throughout their life cycle. In fact, chemical fertilizers account for 5% of the world's annual GHG emissions (a third of which comes from their production) (France 24, 2023). They are also responsible for significant soil and water pollution.
👉 Reducing GHG emissions from the waste sector
The waste sector is responsible for 4% of GHG emissions in France in 2023.
The majority of bio-waste is landfilled or incinerated, which are highly polluting processes:
1️⃣ Biowaste is 60-90% water. This makes heat production by incineration less efficient, and therefore more CO2-polluting.
2️⃣ Their fermentation in landfills promotes methane emissions. The global warming power of methane is 25 times greater than that of CO2.
❗ For every tonne of biowaste composted and/or methanized instead of landfilled, 330 kg of CO2 equivalent is avoided (French Ministry of Ecological Transition, 2023).
👉 Improving soil resilience
With monocultures and intensive farming, soils are becoming poorer and more fragile.
1️⃣ By returning organic matter to the soil, spreading compost or digestate combats erosion and loss of soil fertility, and encourages the return of biodiversity.
2️⃣ Compost improves soil carbon sequestration. Soils contain 3 to 4 times more carbon than the atmosphere. Thus, "any positive or negative change in carbon stock can significantly influence, even in the short term, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere", according to the Réseau Compost Citoyen.
❗ Increasing the organic matter content of all soils in a country like Italy by 0.15% would store the equivalent of that country's fossil fuel emissions over a year (European Commission on Soil Strategy, 2006).
